The Justice Department has opened an investigation into the use of race in Harvard University’s admissions practices and has accused the university of failing to cooperate with the probe, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The Justice Department is investigating complaints that formed the basis of a federal civil lawsuit filed in 2014 in Boston, according to the documents. That suit alleges Harvard intentionally discriminates against Asian-Americans by limiting the number of Asian students who are admitted.

The lawsuit, brought by a nonprofit called Students for Fair Admissions, said the practices violate federal civil-rights law and asks a federal judge to prohibit Harvard from using race as a factor in future undergraduate admissions decisions. The suit is pending.

The Justice Department, whose Civil Rights Division is conducting the investigation into similar allegations, said in a letter to Harvard’s lawyers, dated Nov. 17 and reviewed by the Journal, that the school was being investigated under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin for organizations that receive federal funding. The letter also said the school had failed to comply with a Nov. 2 deadline to provide documents related to the university’s admissions policies and practices.

The department told Harvard it “may file a lawsuit” to enforce compliance if Harvard doesn’t hand over the documents by Dec. 1, according to a separate letter dated Nov. 17 from John M. Gore, the acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division. The department wrote that the materials requested by the Justice Department have already been provided by Harvard to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

The documents reviewed by the Journal confirm the existence of an investigation that the Justice Department in August indicated it would pursue and suggest that Harvard has challenged the authority of the department’s Civil Rights Division to conduct it.

In a statement, Harvard said: “As we have repeatedly made clear to the Department of Justice, the University will certainly comply with its obligations under Title VI.” The school added that it was seeking to engage the department in the best way to share relevant information while protecting applicants’ privacy.

The Justice Department’s investigation escalates a longstanding national debate over the role of race in college admissions—an issue the U.S. Supreme Court has intermittently wrestled with since the 1970s. As recently as last year, the court upheld the use of racial preferences in public university admissions.

In early August, the Justice Department posted an internal job listing for attorneys to investigate racial bias in college admissions, as it prepared to review a separate 2015 complaint filed by a coalition of 64 Asian-American associations claiming Harvard discriminates against Asian-American applicants.

Harvard has previously said its admissions process is consistent with the legal precedents set over the past 40 years by the Supreme Court, which have allowed universities to consider race as a factor in admissions to obtain the benefits of a diverse student body.

Justice Department spokesman Devin O’Malley said: “The Department of Justice takes seriously any potential violation of an individual’s civil and constitutional rights.” He declined to comment on the details of any continuing investigation.

In letters sent to the Justice Department in October and November and reviewed by the Journal, Harvard’s lawyers questioned why the investigation was being conducted by the Civil Rights Division.

One possible outcome of the investigation is litigation in court between the Justice Department and Harvard.
Photo:
Charles Krupa/Associated Press

Seth Waxman, a partner at WilmerHale, the law firm representing Harvard, called the investigation “outside ordinary practices” of the Justice Department because responding to a complaint filed more than two years prior wouldn’t meet the department’s standard of “prompt” action.

Mr. Waxman also denounced the investigation on the grounds that identical issues are being litigated in federal court. The Education Department declined to investigate the same complaint largely because the private lawsuit against Harvard covered the issues, Mr. Waxman wrote in an Oct. 6 letter to the Justice Department.

He also said any investigation would more appropriately come from the Justice Department’s Office for Civil Rights, inside its Office of Justice Programs, not the Civil Rights Division.

The Justice Department in its letters to Harvard’s lawyers defended the investigation’s delegation to its Civil Rights Division.

At a meeting on Sept. 11, Harvard representatives “offered to work collaboratively” with the Justice Department’s lawyers, according to the Nov. 17 letter from Mr. Gore.

The Justice Department gave the school a Nov. 2 deadline to provide the requested information. But over the past two months, “Harvard has pursued a strategy of delay and has not yet produced even a single document,” according to another Nov. 17 letter sent from the agency to Mr. Waxman.

Mr. Waxman expressed concern in his Oct. 6 letter about the privacy of information that would be shared with the Justice Department, including applications from high-school students “and candid evaluations of those students.” He pointed to the fact that Freedom of Information Act requests had been filed asking for information about a possible probe of the school.

Harvard asked the Justice Department for information on any complaints that prompted the investigation, according to the department’s letters. In his Oct. 6 note, Mr. Waxman also requested copies of written communication about Harvard or the investigation between Justice Department offices and Students for Fair Admissions, its outside legal counsel, and a few affiliated groups.

The government said in one of its Nov. 17 letters that the Students for Fair Admissions lawsuit captures the complaints under investigation and wouldn’t give Harvard further details “because the release may interfere with an active investigation.”

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According to experts in civil-rights law, there are many potential outcomes to the investigation. One possibility is that it could lead to litigation in court between the Justice Department and Harvard. In that case, if a federal judge finds Harvard has violated Title VI, the court has broad authority to issue a remedy, such as ordering the university to change its admissions policies, the experts say.

Schools in violation of Title VI can also lose access to federal funds.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit are members of Students for Fair Admissions, which advocates for the elimination of affirmative action in college admissions and includes Asian-Americans who were denied admission to Harvard. The group is led by conservative legal activist Edward Blum.

Asian-American groups have been raising concerns about the fairness of Ivy League admissions practices since at least 1989.

Mr. Blum also spearheaded a challenge to affirmative action brought by a white applicant against the University of Texas, which was decided by the Supreme Court last year.

In the 4-3 ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy left the door open to future legal challenges by saying universities should continue to review their affirmative-action policies to assess their positive and negative effects.